Choice
by cups123
Summary: Cursed with the powers of the Mars Star, Isaac's life slowly crumbles at the hands of his own kindness and respect for others, until one day when he collaspes and saw the truth that was about to take shape.
1. Cursed

Disclaimer: I don't own Golden Sun…and Golden Sun 2…so no one's gonna sue me now, right?

**Cursed**

For a long time now, a bitter feeling has been building inside me. Every night I would hear the cries of those who've survived the tragedy, which for many hours would continue to echo through my window and drag me out of my brief but precious slumber, as they came to the door of my new house where I lived alone, away from my parents and friends, to seek aid from I whom have been "blessed" by the Wise One with the powers of the Mars Star.

From morning to dusk, I would be busy leveling the terrain around the new Vale with the vast amount of Psynergy that I alone possess, ranging from tasks such as binding the thousands of rubbles and boulders in an attempt to slowly reform the once great and glorious Mt. Aleph, famous for having been the world's source of Alchemy to the wise and completely unheard of to the ignorant, to more minor tasks such as house constructions for those who are unable to build their own as in the cases of the elderly or hunting for food. For the sake of my town and the people I love, I've slaved in such a manner for months without objection, working until every bit of the vast and seemingly limitless supply of Psynergy was drained from my body, by which then I would have a fifteen minute break to recharge on the Psynergy Stone that had somehow, fortunately for us, been spared from the collapse of Mt. Aleph. The fifteen minutes I had to myself was the only actual free time I had during the course of the entire day and as short as it was, it was the only time I had to take my daily catnap. _This_ _power _is the curse of the Wise One.

Sometimes I would dream of the old Vale where I had spent my early childhood, the time even before I became friends with Garet, the time when I had first met Jenna and her brother, Felix, one night under a starry sky on a by a waterfall. Like them, I had to sneak out of the house when my parents fell asleep because I heard that was the night of the meteor shower, and like Jenna and Felix, I thought at the time that wishes made that night would really come true. I remember Jenna sitting there with her knees drawn to her – a time when she actually seemed nice and feminine, with Felix and I on either sides of her, standing there in as cool a way as we could think of, stared into the sky, at the distant lights that marked the beginning of our most important friendship. When the shower was reaching its end, I realized Felix and I were both trying to stand as tall as we could, but still our heights were no match for that of the rope railings of the bridge, and I started to laugh to myself, loving that feeling of acceptance, so I gently clasped my hands together and silently prayed, unlike other boys my age who all wished to become great heroes of legends and win the hearts of beautiful girls, that I would one day be able to experience this exact same moment once more, just the three of us under this same meteor shower, on this same bridge, while the rest of the village was sleeping away.

Other times, I would dream about the future, which too is centered around the bridge under a starry night, except this time, instead of being two feet tall three-year-olds, we are grown teenagers entering our prime and with a snoring Garet in the back behind us.

However, as things are right now, my dreams seem like nothing more than what they are. Although over the course of almost half year I've almost managed to bring Mt. Aleph back, knowing there's no way it could possibly look exactly the way it is, I took extra care to keep a gap for the river to run and a bridge to be built similar, if not exact, to the bridge that used to be there. But even it all goes as I wish, things just wouldn't be as they are in my dreams, because I no longer feel like I can be the healthy me that I was a year ago. Although I've been imbued with the powers of the Mars Star by the Wise One, I'm still only a human that, like all others, pale in comparison to the great guardian.

My thoughts were interrupted when a familiar voice broke through to me as I took my short break today. Opening my eyes without lifting my head that leaned against the Psynergy Stone, I turned to face the source of the voice. "…Not again…" I whispered to myself. It was him again, the one who used to live at the lowest level of the town of Vale, the boy who wished to become a great blacksmith and has had a crush on Jenna since he was a child. The day I took off to leave on my journey I had visited him, hoping he would make me a fine sword to start me off with, but instead, not only was he not able to, all he did was, together with his mother, devise a way for him to court Jenna once Garet and I "save" her.

"Hey, Isaac!" he yelled cheerfully at me as I glanced away in annoyance. If he came to me with that smile on his face, that could mean only one of two things: either he wanted more advice on winning Jenna over, or he just thought of another one of his "foolproof" plan that he wanted to go over with me first.

"What is it?" I asked with little interest, not even bothering to turn to him.

"I got it! This is great, no, this is better than great, this is fantastic! Isaac, the most amazing thing just happened to me!" he jumped around with joy, much to my surprise. Now I was interested, this being the first time he seemed to overcome with joy. "I finally got Jenna to agree to go out on a date with me!" he screamed as he leapt one final time. The words rang a few times in my head before I made any sense out of, mostly because it was so unbelievable that someone as fierce as Jenna would go out with this loser.

"Are you serious?" I asked looking at him in the eyes. "What did you do? Bribe her?"

He turned to me in astonishment. "What? Of course not! I would never do such a thing to a sweet angel like her!" he defended himself. My only thought was what he saw as sweet or angelic in Jenna. Then I started to wonder if he had meant Mia because at one point he wanted to get his hands on her too when she visited Vale over half a year ago. If it was Mia, then I could understand where he got the sweet and angelic from. But then again, Mia wouldn't be here right now, she'd be back at Imil with the two little kids whose names I've forgotten.

"But there _was_ one condition," he said putting a finger to his lips and emphasizing the word "was" a little, "she said she wanted me to take her here, which is weird, considering she lives about half a mile up the mountain."

Something was definitely wrong. First, from experience, whenever a person wants to meet up with Jenna, the person _always _had to go to her, not the other way around. Second, she would never agreed to go out with a guy like him, feeling he's nothing more than a lecherous blacksmith who's desperate to get his hands on any attractive young girl. Lastly, if she had accepted his date, there would be no way he would have returned here alive, because Felix would've made sure he doesn't live long enough to go on the date.

"That's…nice." I finally muttered realizing none of this was my business.

"'That's nice?' That's all you can say? I'm making history here! I've got to get ready for my date tomorrow afternoon!" He quickly ran off in the direction of his house which seemed to be at the exact same location as where it had used to be prior to the collapse of Vale, or now known as the 2nd tragedy.

"Well, if he isn't careful, he's going to experience a personal 3rd tragedy pretty soon." I told myself. "Felix, Jenna, what in the world could've happened?" I wondered, still trying to take in the fact that Jenna has a date with a loser who may actually live to take her out.

As energy from the stone continued to flow into me, I savored more and more each lasting second until it was finally time to get back to work. Putting a hand to the stone, I propelled myself off the stone with one swift movement, landing on my feet but almost falling as I noticed my physical stamina is at a bare minimum. When my shaking knees started to give way, I began to fell forward, completely exhausted from overworking, I felt an arm making its way around my limp body. Weakly, as if waking up from a trance, I looked into the eyes of my rescuer only to see a blur of colors that I couldn't make any sense of before I went unconscious.

I saw a familiar town. When I came to, I was floating in the sky high above a completed Vale, but I couldn't see myself. When I looked down, I saw I had no physical body, as if my existence was nothing more than a spirit of some sort. Down below me, I immediately felt overcome with happiness when I saw the new Vale, decorated with cherry blossoms, sparks of light seeming to rise out of nowhere, the people running around as they sang and celebrated the completion of their home, but above all, standing over a running river on top of a bridge, there stood Felix, Jenna, and Garet, just as I dreamed they would one day, only I'm not there.

"Hang on guys, I'm coming." I happily tried to say, but no sound came out of my inexistent mouth. As I quickly descended towards them, I saw the truth. There were no cherry blossoms, or sparks of light that rose out of nowhere, or even people celebrating, there was only a great fire. The fire that burned through the trees, flowers, and grass, the sparks that continued to rise from the remaining ashes, and the screaming of the villagers as they fled in terror. My three closest friends weren't just having a good time among themselves, they had their weapons drawn, tears filling their eyes as held their ground against an impending dark figure that seemed to house incredible energy. Behind the figure were the bodies of those others whom I've come to care for, the ones who had accompanied me on my journey, the four others who had helped to unleash Alchemy into the world.

"What the hell is this?" I thought in horror. Felix, who had looked so hesitant, looked to the others.

"Isaac is dead." he announced through his clenching teeth and I saw a genuine hatred in his eyes for the first time as he looked at the figure shrouded in a blood-red cloak. I was dead? Before I had time to think about it, Felix leapt high into the air, raising his Sol blade high above him as it brimmed with incredible power, as if waking up from a long sleep, and came down clashing against a dark sword that strangely resemble the renowned Excalibur, though differing in color as it glowed with a violent black fire that consumed the light surrounding it. With the colliding of the two mighty blades, the force that resulted had blown the hood off the figure and revealed his shockingly familiar face. I descending down towards him, and realized I was looking at myself, face to face, before everything turned black.


	2. A Dream to Die For

**A Dream to Die For**

Dreams: something people have always believed to hold an underlying truth kept hidden from us by the deepest depths of our unconscious mind. But the truth is, dreams are nothing more than what they are - dreams, that is, things in our minds or memories that randomly come shooting back to us during sleep, bits of information that the unconscious is unable to comprehend without conscious thoughts, and in an attempt to weave together the unrecognizable bits into something sensible, wind up creating a false reality that can ultimately embed itself into the dreamer as a truth. But quite often, dreams are their own resolves, for as discretely as they form, they fade away from the person's memories along with the unconscious as it loses it's control when waking approaches, thus preventing any false realities from taking shape. That is the true nature of dreams - not messages from the gods, not glimpses of the future, nor is it even anything meaningful, but rather just the failure to construct an idea from random abstract bits of information.

If one were to ask the members of the churches in any cities, towns, or villages, they would state with confidence that it's a message from a higher being, and if one asked Kraden, he would surely propose Alchemy is the driving force behind dreams as he would argue for anything else in the world for that matter, but in order to pursue the truth, all people have to do is to search inside themselves and accept the simple answer that dreams don't mean anything - at least, that is what I believe.

For that reason, I've ignored all the constant repetitive nightmares I've experienced, the horrors of the deaths of my friends, which I thought to simply mirror the death of all the creatures I've slain, the dark Excalibur I held mirroring the darkness that it has pierced in my journey, and the fight with Felix representing our rivalry, and in the end, I was still unable to let go of the possibilities that the church members may be right, that it really is a message from a higher being like the Wise One, or that perhaps Alchemy was indeed the one giving me the messages, for it does possess the ability to see into the future as Master Hama once said, leading me to ultimately become determined to journey out again one day to search for that elusive underlying truth that plagued my dreams.

I opened my eyes slowly to a seemingly omnipresent and repetitive voice that sounded awfully annoying and disturbed my peace. A whole day had already passed since I fainted and I found myself rested against the same familiar crystal. Weakly, I lifted my head off the glimmering purple Psynergy stone that radiated under the light of the sun and turned my attention towards where the voice forcefully dragged it, bringing into sight a person whom I knew was soon to die – the one whose name I don't even know nor care to know, the most abnoxious self-deemed "blacksmith" I've ever seen in my life, the first date of one of my two first childhood friends: Jenna. Before giving the "blacksmith" anymore thought, I took a second to survey my surroundings and though I had expected it, I was disappointed to find myself at the end of midday, even more so for having to put up with a repetitive "Isaac, Isaac! It's my big day!" as he tried harder and harder to claim my attention. Being here upon my wake must have meant I slept here since yesterday's break after falling unconscious, and it bothered me that no one seemed to notice. They just went on with their own part in the revival as if nothing ever happened to me.

I finally let out a sigh as I turned my face towards him, and once again rested my cheeks against the cold hard Psynergy Stone that felt like the warmest thing in the world as long as my Psynergy wasn't fully recharged, "Yes? What's the matter?"

"Guess what? Guess what?" he pestered maniacally.

I wasn't really in the mood to talk to him today even more so than the days past. While my Psynergy may be great, my physical stamina still had its limits that never strayed too far from the norm, limits that I've long breached, leaving me constantly in my weakened state. This feeling is worse than that of having my flesh pierced by sharp fangs of the hordes of demons I've slain in the past. Perhaps this is my punishment and hopefully, my redemption for taking lives endlessly and disobeying the Wise One, for all these actions I have taken out of selfishness and claimed to have done so for the sake of justice and righteousness; this was indeed, perhaps, the punishment placed upon me by Wise One, that is, the power of the mars star.

"It's my big date!" he announced throwing his arms out into the air when I didn't answer in a while. It was not that I didn't want to answer him; it was simply that his presence wasn't the best cure in the world for my stress and weariness.

"Oh, yeah, with Jenna…Good luck with that." I sincerely wished him, because he was going to need every bit of it handling her, even though it probably wouldn't do any good once Felix is thrown into the picture. Seeing him celebrating so cheerfully about his impending death really startled me however and I supposed that ignorance really is bliss.

"Thanks Isaac." He replied with a big smile and took a seat next to me. Then his frown disappeared and he took on a much more serious tone, "You know? I think I can really fall for that girl…" he said dreamily as he looked into the dawning sun as it descended towards the horizon, it's yellow beams giving the Pysnergy Stone a reddish tint. "She's really something, isn't she? Her beautiful reddish lavender hair tied up into a cute pony tail, the warm and inviting gentleness deep in her eyes hidden under a much more piercing and mature exterior, the invisible but sensational fiery glow in the center of her eyes that takes shape according to her emotions, and her amazing choice of clothes that not only matched both the colors of her hair and eyes, but dressed in such an alluring way that I simply find myself unable to tear my gaze away from her presence.

"I had no idea you thought that way." I too replied in a serious manner. Maybe this guy isn't as bad as I thought if he can cherish her in a way I've never dreamed about.

"Only problem is, of course…Mia is the exact same, except where Jenna is red, she is blue, and where Jenna speaks her mind, Mia holds back, but I can see in both their eyes that deep down they're both very similar."

"I don't get it…You've only seen Mia once. How can you talk like you know them so well?" I asked him out of curiosity. "I've known Jenna before I can remember and I've spent much time with Mia during our travels, and in neither of them did I see anything like you described."

"Heh, that's because you're looking at them all wrong, Isaac." he said to me with a cocky grin and patted my shoulder.

"Looking at them all wrong?" I wondered to myself what this guy was talking about and I certainly didn't appreciate his grin or the fact that he tilted his face upward so he can look down on me.

"Have you ever heard of the mind's eye?" he asked.

"My…mind's eye?" By now I was just thinking he's gone crazy over the fact that he finally had a date.

"Yeah, you know, how you see her in your own mind, like, your visualization of her." he explained pointing his index finger to his forehead.

"So you mean what you said was all just in your head?"

He looked at me with a surprised look on his face as if he had no expected the question, "Erm…Not really, but sort of…"

Seeing him looking desperately for an answer, I decided to give up on him, because in my "mind's eye" as he calls it, he had no idea what he was talking about. "Forget I asked." I told him. I didn't want to listen to his nonsense anymore, but still, as much as I tried to forget, and as much as it pained to me remember, a part of what he said during this conversation still lingers unforgotten in the back of my mind, and ever so slightly did I begin trying to see with this "mind's eye", which is really nothing more than one's own imagination of what the physical reality is without basing it on any actual visual perception.

"So, when's your date?" I tried changing the subject but mentally slapped myself when I realized I was changing it from bad to worse.

"Oh, it's like in a while. We said we'd meet when the sun meets the horizon." he said pointing far away into the distance where the sun was still a little above the mountain range.

"Isn't that kind of late?" I asked. "By the time the sun meets the horizon, it wouldn't be long before nightfall." He stood up and brushed some dirt off his pants and smiled at me.

"The darker, the better. See you later, Isaac." And with that he waved to me and dashed up the mountain towards Jenna's and Felix's house.

I knew I should be working right now, finishing up what little – relatively speaking – work I have left until the completion of Vale. Just this once though, I wanted to relax and dream about my past. It is ironic that I had so much more smiles and laughter during times of great peril compared to the times of peace and harmony. I suppose all this just goes to support all the theories Kraden have of the balance between everything that's good and everything that's bad, not in just Weyard, but in the entire world, beyond the infinite stretches of the Gaia Falls.

I thought about the happy days when I was a child. Before I got to know Jenna and Felix, I was always with my parents because I didn't know anyone else. But eventually, sooner or later, they would leave to do their part in Vale, and I would be left alone for hours that would seem to stretch longer and longer as each ever-expanding minute passed by and prolonged their return, until one day, when I finally took a bold step out the house.

I was still young, only five years into my life. This was the first time I left far from my house without my parents holding my hands, my mom taking my left into her gentle warm hand, and my dad taking my right into his firm and unyielding grasp, making me feel both loved and protected. This time, without those same comforting feelings, I headed out, observing my surroundings, seeing all the familiar things that now felt so alien to me, as if I expected those same faces, same houses, same trees and grasses, flowers and butterflies, the waterfall, the stream, would all show me a different side to them as I experience them again by my lone self. At first, I thought it would be true, because at the time, as I headed down towards the lower levels of Vale, the people I've met with my parents and had given me a bright smile now gave me a different look, one that was far from a smile, a look that I had not yet known to be that of curiosity and surprise. It scared me for a while and I began have second thoughts about breaking my parents' rules and sneaking out of the house until when my own curiosity rose to meet my fear upon seeing two kids that looked my age outside a house situated by the waterfall.

That was the day when I finally met my first two friends and found something new and exciting in the world. I suppose that's where I got my enjoyment of adventuring from, although one wouldn't really call taking a few steps down a village an adventure, but it sure felt like one back then. It had afforded me the opportunity to meet the some of the people I cherish more than anything else in the world, the people I'm proud to call my friends, and in a way, they are a part of my family.

Then reality hit me and I realized that was all in the past, that I was trying to drown myself in my memories of the past that should no longer bear any meaning, for like dreams, they serve no purpose. I knew Jenna might be here soon, and not wanting to see her yet until my dreams of being with her, along with Felix and the rest of the gang under a starlit sky while relaxing on a bridge that went from cliff to cliff high above her house and spanning the river that quietly streamed underneath, I forced myself up and slowly trailed down Mt. Aleph. I had only managed to take only a few steps before I saw a figure before me, standing by the entrance to Vale, and just as quickly as I saw it, I realized who it was. To my disappointment and regret, my eyes wide with shock, I whispered out his name, "Felix…"

From behind his shadow emerged three more, "Jenna, Garet." I called out their names one by one as I saw them. The third shadow was a bit out of the norm as it hung on Felix's right fist, and as soon as he stepped towards me, I noticed it was the "blacksmith" that was suppose to be Jenna's date. He actually dressed up pretty well; he looked fine and all, everything except that he was unconscious – most likely having been knocked out.

Felix slowly approached me, his fierce gaze unwavering and deathly, and as soon as he got into arm's reach, I tried asking him, "Feli –"

However, before I could finish my sentence, a fist came flying at me and just as soon as I felt the impact of the blow and my body flying off into the distance, I felt my consciousness too, just as the blacksmith, slip away from me and sending me into utter darkness once again.


End file.
